But it spared the governor a humiliating home state loss of the kind weathered in Florida by Marco Rubio, allowing Kasich to claim victory in a battleground state and attempt to build a storyline around proving he's a contender.

Kasich called his state's vote a repudiation of the overheated rhetoric that's frayed his party during a bitter primary cycle dominated by the bombastic Trump.

"You came to Ohio, you threw everything you had at me and guess what, it didn't work because we know that we need to unite this country and be Americans and not spend our time dividing people in this country," Kasich told CNN.

"I'm going to get in a covered wagon and hope for a big breeze ... This is the little engine that can," Kasich told CNN ahead of his victory speech in Berea, Ohio.

"I may go to the convention before this is over with more delegates than anyone else," said Kasich, who's also a former member of Congress, leaning into a message of unity over division.

Tight Contest: Coming into the Buckeye State contest, polls showed Kasich slightly ahead of Trump or tied with him, per tracking by RealClearPolitics.

"We're going to win Ohio," Kasich said on Good Morning Americaas Ohioans prepared to head to the polls.

"We have to win."

Trump, characteristically, kept up a barrage of Twitter attacks against Kasich as voters headed to the polls in Ohio, a state heavily populated by working class whites.

The frontrunner's intensity in going after Kasich — who has fielded relatively few Trump barbs compared to rivals Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio — sharply highlighted the value of a state no Republican has ever won the White House without:

Watching John Kasich being interviewed - acting so innocent and like such a nice guy. Remember him in second debate, until I put him down.

Ohio is losing jobs to Mexico, now losing Ford (and many others). Kasich is weak on illegal immigration. We need strong borders now!

In presidential voting so far, John Kasich is ZERO for 22. So why would he be a good candidate? Hillary would beat him, I will beat Hillary!

That last point matters: Although Kasich carried the day in Ohio, Trump came into Tuesday with 463 of the 1,237 delegates required for the nomination.

Kasich — who, as Trump noted, had not yet carried a single primary or caucus outright — had earned just 63 delegates.

In the run-up to the day's voting, Kasich sought to remind Ohioans of his work as their chief executive to improve the job market and education.

Via social media, he framed himself as a "Reagan conservative." He played up the above-the-fray, adult-in-the-room image he's cultivated throughout his longshot bid.

Calling all high-road Buckeyes! Now is the time to fight for civility & make Ohio proud. The world is watching. pic.twitter.com/dKoC1dfKzX

Speaking to reporters in Westerville earlier Tuesday, Kasich called himself proud of having run a positive campaign — but made clear voters could soon expect him to draw sharper contrasts with Trump's tone and record.

"I just saw a commercial ... of these comments that were made about women. I have two daughters. They see this stuff," Kasich said, referring to a super PAC-funded ad that features women reeling off some of Trump's most sexist quotes. "What do you think they think? We'll have more to say about that."

You will want to see what John Kasich had to say after voting this morning in Ohio. https://amp.twimg.com/v/25b27b72-df45-4e2c-b175-eeec877503bf ...

Ohio and the nation: Census data culled from 2014 reports shows Ohio's voting-age population is overwhelmingly white at 83.2%. For the country at large, that number is 66.3%.

Ohio is about on par with the rest of the country in terms of the number of African-Americans of voting age — between 12% and 13% — but is home to dramatically fewer voting-age Latinos. They account for less than three percent of the potential Ohio electorate, versus about 15% nationwide.

The state's poverty rate mirrors the nation's at slightly under 14%, and the median household income came in at about $4,000 less than the national median of $53,657.